Skarnu smiled as most of his men fluttered back in fear of the warrior, so this was the man aiding his slave. Skarnu hadn't faced a real warrior in a long time, this would be interesting. But first buisness.

Standing straight up he called to the warrior, "Warrior, you have proven yourself a fighter by defeating my crew earlier. But this slave that you harbor. Give him to me now and you can leave here. I'm not making this offer twice."

*

Martinus had an animal like fear in his face, animal survival instincts were making him edgy. The black leather and iron armor clad women were a mystery to him but no less unnerving. This place it was like a hide out of some sort. Then Skarnu's voice reached him and he went rigid, "Warrior, you have proven yourself a fighter by defeating my crew earlier. But this slave that you harbor. Give him to me now and you can leave here. I'm not making this offer twice."

The apparent leader of pirates sent in a message through the cave mouth in heavily-accented Low Arcturan.Alssonus prepared to reply, but the black clad woman interfered. With a look of annoyance, she snapped imperiously. The room rocked for a moment, and the air seemed to darken, and then the bearded northmen were dumped unceremoniously out of thin air into a pile, and were then surrounded by more leather-clad, iron-armored women.Alssonus looked around, trying to take hold of the situation.The only thing uniform about the woman guards were their scanty leather and iron outfits, and a profusance of piercings and tattoos. Some were Arcturans or Marcosians, others Zinaldians, Nermalians, Orlonians. There were Gundishwomen and Alssons, and even a tiny Halecan and a Licurian. Some were good-looking, others average.The woman in black silk was another thing entirely, Alssonus thought. She was exquisite. Dressed in an ethereal slip of black silk, she had long, straight, shining hair, black with a crimson sheen. Her skin was pale as milk, her cheekbones and nose noble and perfectly purportioned. Her lips were as red as blood or rubies, though blood came first to mind. She, like her guards, was much pierced, with rings in her ears and eyebrows, and one on the middle of her bottom lip. Her eyes, beneath long dark lashes and lines of kohl, were a curious hard dark grey, like flint. The image she presented was one of a fiendish sort of beauty, like a succubus-demon, of blood and black.This woman sipped from her bejewelled goblet and then, unceremoniously, let it drop to the floor, were the soft gold crushed under the weight of the gems it was studded with. As great a waste of good treasure as Alssonus ever saw."Who comes so blithely in, where spectral warnings show?" said the blood-black woman sinuously, and with a flick of her fingers caused all of the torches in the room to burn a corpse-like sick green for a moment."Is it treasure hunters? Or fugitive slaves?" she continued, then shifting into guttural, hard-edged Radothite tongue, saying to the pirates "Are they your slaves? Or perhaps you are the slaves and they the masters?"She laughed."No matter," she said in High Arcturan, "It is of no account. Take them away. I shall deal with them later."The guard-women bowed their heads and said, as one, "Yes, Lady of Darkness."

What happened to get them in the cave and surronded by very attractive leather and iron clad women bewildered Skarnu, his men were perverts but the look each of these women gave them made them more chaste than castration would. Whoever these women they definately fanactical and dangerous. Skarnu and his armed bandits had their guard up, but they were outnumbered and outmanuevered. The "Lady of Darkness" whoever she was, was definately sick in the head. ]

"Lower your weapons boys they got the drop on us." Skarnu said. "But Cap-" one of the men complained but Skarnu backhanded him and get off his complaint. "Do it now."

"Lady of Darkness, I had no idea I was intruding on your domain, but I was merely trying to catch this runnaway who is rightfuly mine." Skarnu set his eyes on Rannu. The boy shuttered in terror, Rannu was a brave lad and head strong, but Rannu had never scouraged him, but made him watch him scourage others. Sometimes fear was more powerful than the actual thing, but this time the boy was definately getting scouraged once Rannu got him shackeled again.

The "Lady of Darkness" smiled laughed, a chill sound. Her glance drifted away from Skarnu and into the shadowy wings of the chamber. A being seemed to step out from among the delicately carved figures on the wall, a tall, pale man, with black hair cut in the Arcturan style. He was dressed sumptuously, in a mixture of Marcosian and Arcturan style, with a noble Arcturan mantle fastened not with the traditional eagle-fastener, but with a bat. He was handsome, in a way. His lips were a shiny black, and his eyes were deeply shadowed. But it was the eyes that were most disturbing. They were black, with no whites, and the irises were of a strange, orange-ish red color. His mouth was twisted into a gloating smirk as he drifted to the side of the "Lady of Darkness", taking a seat and irreverently kicking his feet up onto the table in the midst of a carcass of chicken.And, on the other side of the "Lady", there was a woman. She hadn't approached, she was simply there. She was lithe and beautifully-figured, with skin as pale as the others. She wore only a strip of black cloth tight against her bust and a long loincloth decorated in silver-and-red patterns. Her upper thighs and arms were tattooed in serpentine lines. Her hair was a mass of thick braids, with metal rings, feathers, and jewels woven in. But her face was obscured by a mask, blank and flat save two small eye-holes, and lacquered red."Captain...Skarnu, I believe... Allow me to introduce my honored associates." said the Lady of Darkness. She turned to the left and laid a delicate hand upon the black-lipped man's arm."This is His Lordship, the illustrious Tenebrio, Baron of the Black Forest," she said in liquid tones. Then, turning to the masked woman said: "And this is Laiqueth of Paphlagonia."Then, she flicked her hand in at her guards. "Take them away. Leave our friend, Captain Skarnu."

Martinus(Rannu) felt flighty but there was no where to run, no where to run. This cramped darkness, he wouldn't go back to it never, never would he willing allow himself lead below decks of that devil's ship. Martinus hadn't been locked up yet so he carefuly wrapped his remaining chains into metal knuckles. "I will sooner die for my freedom than go back with that insult to humanity!" Martinus put his back against the wall and looked at everyone in animalistic way examing that fastest way to kill each person in the vincity to him. His breathing returned to normal and his eyes were darting around then settled on Skarnu. "You will die by my hand."

"Boy you watch your mouth, when I get my hands on you I'm going to scourage off you skin and leave you for the carrion birds!" Skarnu shouted at him. He kicked his rapier up and shoved over the closet lady and charged Martinus.

Martinus reacted with speed and precision unknown to him before, his long red arcturan mane of hair swept out behind him. He delt the closet pirate a fist to the throat that smashed his adam's apple, while ramming another up into the wall and crushing his head with palm. He reached Skarnu faster than anyone thought a young slave could, but Martinus was running on seventeen years of bottled fury, rage, and hate. Skarnu's rapier flashed up before him and Martinus grabbed the blade and used the metal shackle on his wrist and brought it down like a lightining strike and snapped the crude metal blade in half. Martinus ripped the blade out his hand braking three of skarnu's fingers and his thumb. He grabbed the scruff of Skarnu's shirt and hurled him on the ground, Skarnu's eye glazed over as the back of his head hit the ground. Martinus seized the dazed man's throat in a blood lust he started squeezing the life out of him then suddenly as it came it stopped, "No, I won't become you."

"Whats.. wrong.. bbb ooy got no balls?? Hic-up!" Skarnu muttered.

Martinus smacked his temple and Skarnu fell unconsious, "Take him, I don't care what you do to him, but I am no one's slave anymore! Here that!" Martinus unshackled himself and let the crumbling chains clang to the floor. He looked into the eyes of the so called Lady of Darkness, "I am free." He proclaimed then stepped back and leaned against the wall..

OOC: Hmm good queston man, as for the armed guards lets say I surprised them, beat up the bunch of pirates because they oogling the women, and the shackles were rusty. Anyways I need my character needed this, sorry if it messed what you were planning but his reaction was parted meditated rage and animalistic attack, Fortuna favors him.

Alssonus lay with his face pressed against the bars, staring out into the gloom of the prison. The stone of the tunnel was jumbled, smashed, the back had collapsed long ago. The bricks wept copiously, and the cells were inches deep in foul-smelling ooze. However, despite all the rotting of the stone, the bars held hard as if they had just been forged.He peered across the way and descryed another lying in the cell across from him."Ahoy!" he called. "You there!"To the front of the opposite cell came a face, brown and time-weathered, with a salt-and-pepper beard and a tattoo of a green handprint across the left of his face. The man had a sharp, hooked nose and the features of one of the desert men from across the Southern Sea."Alssonus? Alssonus is being that you?" he said, with amazement in his heavily-accented voice."Sallah ul-Uhkahr? What's an old sand-dog like you doing in this hell-pit?" replied Alssonus incredulously."I am being detained in the Olko Isles by men of ill trade," the Zuccharan said, referring to slave traders. "They are saying they take me far away to be mining jewels! They bring me here!" he paused, to spit in the direction of one of the silent, leather-clad female guards who stood at the distant end of the dungeon. Then, good-naturedly; "How have you are being since met we last, good Armorican infidel?""Well, good as can be expected, I suppose. Fortuna smiles upon me once again!" the adventurer said sarcastically. "What do you suppose we could do to get out of here, old man?"

(OOC: Your characters will be in separate cells, not with Alssonus. You can probably here him and Sallah speaking, but you cannot discern what it is about. One end of the dungeon is caved in. The other end has three hallways, two that lead to deeper, abandoned dungeons, and one that is a stair up into the fortress.)

Callis, alone in his prison, paced back and forth endlessly, one hand casually brushing against his cheek - Hmm, he was starting to get stubble... He really should have shaved more recently, after all, how was he going to impress these women with a bearded chin?Obviously, he didnt seem that fearful of the fact he was locked in a cell - merely bored. For his feet to touch mere stone was also an irritation, of course. He needed the soft touch of grass beneath his feet to get him closer to the wurd of the world. He could hear the large man in the cell two up from his speaking with someone, but the words were lost in the echos of the room. After some time of this, he decided to attempt to break his boredom by singing a soft halecan tune beneath his breath - the long, flowing words amplified slightly in the echoing hallway, giving an eerie, yet beautiful sound to it.

OOC: Lets say after my character finaly back away from Skarnu one of the female guards bashed him over the head and that was how they were to get him in the cell otherwise he would have fought to the death.

"OOOHHHH..." Martinus something clanging on bars woke him up, he was laying on his back on a moldy, rancid, cot in a stone cell. Martinus moaned again his head felt horrible. He felt along his scalp and felt a large bump. He was lucky the guard hadn't bashed his skull in, it certainly felt like she had. He laid there morose he had traded one master of another set.

Martinus sat there he tried remembering what happened but only got still pictures, he remembered beating Skarnu, and the exchange of words. Why? He asked himself, why hadn't he killed him? Skarnu was probaly enjoying these hors care right now. Martinus got up and felt his feet in the mud, he crused viley as any Radothite pirate. Then squelched through the mud and filth to the bars he looked squarely into the eyes of the female guard down the hall, "I will be free." He proclaimed he stepped away from the filth and laid down on the mat for some much needed rest.

Callis gave a little snort as the guard banged against the cell, obviously miffed that she was irritated by his singing, and searched the room for other ways to amuse himself. After some time, his eyes fell upon the hinge which flaked at the impact of the halberd, and he studied it, his small, though dextrous fingers picking at any screws in it. His intentions were not to break free - after all, the guards would probably slay him with ease if he tried to make a run for it - he simply wanted to amuse himself by seeing if he could ... well... unhinge, the hinge. He was certain the guards would see it his way, if they saw him

Sallah produced a small coin from the folds of his sodden robe."So, infidel, what say we are being out of this place, no?" he said, and flipped the coin across to Alssonus."What's this for?" said Alssonus, scrutinizing the coin."Is for nothing. This," replied the Zuccharan, producing a small vial of green fluid, "is for something." He uncorked the vial and dripped a small amount on each hinge. They began to steam and crumble."Back away from door of cell, infidel!" shouted Sallah, as the gate of his cell slammed against Alssonus', both crashing to the floor with a thunderous noise."Praise be to the Green God!" said the Zuccharan, placing his hand upon the green tattoo on his cheek and lifting Alssonus to his feet with the other hand.They turned to face the guards.

Celia gingerly felt her head. Either she had stumbled when the guards were hauling her none too gently down the corridor, or they had given her a sharp rap to the head. Either way, she had been unconscious for some time. She sat up. She appeared to be in a cell. Some kind of commotion was going on out there. She stood up and went to the door. The big Arcturan and someone else were facing a horde of guards, having somehow escaped their cells.

(OOC: Cap, is it logical for there to be a portcullis or some such thing at the door way leading to the stairway up?)